You hate to see it.
Amid all the violently performative virtue signaling going on in the league, the NBA's ratings have absolutely fallen off a cliff.
Ratings are down 45 PERCENT since the 2011-2012 season 😬
From the Athletic (yeah we have an Athletic subscription, we fancy over here):
There's one big issue, though. The desperate need for a new national TV deal comes at the exact moment that viewership interest in the league has cratered. Not merely ebbed. Not subsided a bit in accordance to what one might expect with "cord cutting." No, the NBA has fallen to a new viewership low perhaps not seen since the 1980s.Here's one, yet to be publicized stat to know: 45 percent. As in the league's ABC games, its premium broadcast, are down a whopping 45 percent off what the NBA averaged back in 2011-12. In that hastily promoted lockout season, ABC games drew 5.42 million viewers on average. The final tally on this latest 2019-20 season was 2.95 million average viewers on ABC games. Every ABC game from 2011-2012 received higher viewership than 2.95 million, save for a meaningless late season 1 p.m. Thunder-Bulls game that Derrick Rose sat out.That 2.95 million is a great number for a cable comedy, but less so for live sports on network television. Or put another way, the NBA lost nearly half its big game audience over a very brief stretch of time, eight years in fact. That's not a small divot and it's not normal. It most certainly does not square with the narrative of perpetual ascendance that the league had successfully marketed for a time.
Keep in mind, this is during a pandemic when everyone is locked inside their homes and simply desperate for live sports.
Maybe, just maybe this is a sign that people are, you know, sick of the incessant Critical Race Theory wokism being screamed in their faces every time they try to watch a basketball game.
Just a guess 🤷♂️
